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Doña María de los Dolores Gutiérrez del Mazo y Pérez

José Campeche

European Art

José Campeche, who was largely self-taught, was Puerto Rico’s celebrated portrait and religious painter. His father was an enslaved Puerto Rican man of African heritage who purchased his freedom after working as a painter and gilder, and his mother was a white Spanish woman. Here, he depicted a Spanish-born member of Puerto Rico’s colonial elite, wearing diamonds and a white muslin chemise dress—then at the height of European fashion. This portrait was made when the sitter was twenty-one, around the time of her marriage to Don Benito Pérez (their names are written on the folded letters on the desk), a fellow Spaniard who would later become viceroy of New Granada, in South America.
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES ca. 1796
DIMENSIONS 32 11/16 x 26 in. (83 x 66 cm) frame (frame measured 2022): 45 1/4 × 30 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. (114.9 × 76.8 × 16.5 cm) frame: 43 5/16 x 29 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. (110.1 x 74.9 x 11.4 cm)  (show scale)
COLLECTIONS European Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 2012.45
CREDIT LINE Gift of Lilla Brown in memory of her husband, John W. Brown, by exchange
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION José Campeche (Puerto Rican, 1751-1809). Doña María de los Dolores Gutiérrez del Mazo y Pérez, ca. 1796. Oil on canvas, 32 11/16 x 26 in. (83 x 66 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Lilla Brown in memory of her husband, John W. Brown, by exchange, 2012.45 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2012.45_PS6.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 2012.45_PS6.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2012
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